Desiree Ellis winning the Confederation of African Football’s Women’s Coach of The Year prize at the Caf Awards is yet another vindication of her appointment as Banyana Banyana coach‚ says Fran Hilton-Smith.

Ellis’s award at the ceremony in Dakar‚ Senegal on Tuesday night was special to Hilton-Smith‚ Safa’s assistant technical director and head of women’s football‚ for two reasons.

Hilton-Smith was Ellis’s Banyana coach in the 1990s.

She also felt the award vindicated Ellis’s appointment as Banyana coach.

Safa had taken a year-and-a-half‚ from August 2016 to February 2018‚ to appoint Ellis as Vera Pauw’s full-time successor while she filled a caretaker role.

Ellis has steered Banyana to winning the 2017 and 2018 Cosafa Women’s Championships‚ and to the final of the 2018 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations (Awcon)‚ where they lost on penalties against now 11-time winners Nigeria.